


Changes Come To Stay (and The Return of Rust Cohle's '95 Hair)

by fragilelittleteacup



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism (mentioned), Anal Sex, Drug Abuse (mentioned), First Time, First Time Bottoming, Fluff, Haircuts, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Nervousness, Romance, Swearing, these dumb rednecks dont know how to communicate but they rlly rlly love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:20:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9195872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup
Summary: One week after Rust left the hospital, something changed.(OR: I saw a prompt for bottom!Marty and I couldn't resist)





	1. Chapter 1

One week after Rust left the hospital, something changed.

Marty came home, locked the door behind him, and carefully set the bags of shopping on the bench. He had been buying vegetables in bulk, and had a heap of new recipes he wanted to try and force down Rust’s throat. He would be dammed if he was going to let the motherfucker scrape through on a diet of nicotine, beer, and fumes.

“Rust?” He called out. “Tell me you ain’t fallen over and broken a hip!”

“In here, you prick,” came the reply. Marty followed the amused voice to the bathroom, wondering if Rust was struggling with his stitches again. The guy never asked for help, and Marty could respect that. But he could offer a helping hand and some half-assed teasing, for all the good it would do to relax Rust.

“You havin’ a hard time bathin’ again, old man?” Marty asked, as he walked into the bathroom, “Maybe we should hire you some young maid to…”

Marty’s voice trailed off. His brain effectively emptied of anything coherent to say.

He’d been looking for a tired, weary, bitter old man with long grey hair and a moustache that hid his face, as if his beauty was some kind of burden that needed to be denied. What he found, instead, was a younger man, with a weave of greyed-brown hair curling across his hairline, his fresh haircut tapering down and fading out before the nape of his elegant neck. A younger man who was meeting his own eyes in the mirror with a confidence he’d never before shown; as if he was not afraid, as if he had been reborn. He was gaunter and more pale, with stitches on his face and bandages over his body, but Marty was suddenly taken back in time. Back to the man he’d met all those years ago.

Marty’s eyes travelled down Rust’s back, to the slim line of his waist, accentuated by a fitted white singlet. And he remembered. He remembered everything. He remembered a spark, a hidden attraction, a denied thought that just kept coming back to niggle at his understanding of who he was. Through affairs, through divorce, through all the nights spent with young smooth bodies, there had always been this _thing_ in the back of his head. This lingering fascination. This dream, this wanting; imagining his lips against Rust’s body, and Rust’s hands touching him, as if he were...

He looked up. Rust met his stare in the mirror. And all the moisture in Marty’s mouth suddenly dried up, his heart hammering in a suffocating beat of fear, because he knew how Rust worked– he knew that Rust saw fucking everything, and he had to derail this fucking train of thought before it was written all over his face.

“Well shit, you finally got a haircut,” Marty said, smiling weakly, “thought I was gonna have to bring in a pair of goddamn shears to get that mane off you.”

Rust grinned. It was a small expression; a smile that was so free, so brilliantly euphoric, that Marty blinked in shock. Even Rust’s hooded eyes were alight with happiness.

“I feel good, Marty,” Rust drawled, as if it were that fucking simple, as if after all this time he could just _feel good_. After everything that had happened. It sounded far too amazing to be true, and it sounded suspiciously like everything Marty wanted for him, for them both­– and part of him wanted to question it, to pull it apart, to ask, _how the fuck can you possibly be ‘good’ when you wanted to die seven days ago?_

But instead he allowed himself to smile too, a big goddamn grin that said everything he probably never would aloud.

“Well, you _look_ good, for a piece of shit. You want a coffee?”

Rust’s grin widened, and Marty loved how they could both read between the lines.

“Sure thing,” he replied, “asshole.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rust changed.

It wasn’t gradual, it wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t anything Marty knew to predict.

Rust shrugged off his age as if he’d been wanting to for years, as if he’d hated being a lonely, miserable, and generally unpleasant old man. He bought fitted shirts, tucked them in, wore his belt tightened around his slim waist. He got a job as a mechanic. Went shirtless around the house until Marty eventually threw something at him and called him an exhibitionist. He swept his hair back with his fingers in a way he never had before, as if his looks actually mattered to him, as if the whole ‘human consciousness was a tragic mistake’ shit had started to turn into white noise– it seemed he truly didn’t care to discredit his own existence anymore.

And he looked in mirrors.

He looked in mirrors whenever he could, and wherever he could. If his reflection was visible, he would look. He would stare, as if he were searching for something, eyes roaming his figure and his face like there were answers in his own skin he couldn’t find anywhere else. Then, he would smile. He would smile like he was twenty-five, like he had all his life ahead of him.

Generally, his mood and attitude stayed the same. He and Marty would bitch and gripe and flip each other off whenever they got the opportunity, and sometimes all the greeting they had of a morning would be, ‘morning asshole’, accompanied by, ‘fuck off’.

But Marty saw past the surliness and the deadpan retorts. Rust was _happy._ He was someone new, fucking reincarnated, in a way that Marty had never imagined he would be. Since the day that he’d found out Rust had lost his daughter, he’d been certain the guy was done for; he’d been sure Rust would live a long, hard life out of sheer spite, and then drop dead into a grave he’d dug himself.

He had never imagined _this._

 

***

 

“You know,” Marty said as he slowly flipped through a divorce file, “you look like you should be on the cover of Men’s Health or somethin’.”

Over on the couch, Rust snorted.

“Piss off, Marty,” he drawled back, and Marty felt his lips twitch with a smile; he could tell Rust had taken the compliment.

“No, really,” Marty continued, setting the papers down on the kitchen bench, “waddaya say we call up, get you an interview or somethin’-”

“You’re a goddamn idiot.”

“You could be an inspiration to all the other old assholes out there.”

“Fuck you man, I ain’t old.” Rust replied evenly, without looking up from his book. “Age is a fucking state of mind. Until we finished Carcosa for good, I was in my goddamn nineties, but I ain’t livin’ like that anymore. I’m gonna be as young and as pretty as I want, and you’re just gonna hafta fuckin’ put up with it.”

Marty grinned. He beamed. He wanted to sing for joy. All his fucking Christmases had just come at once, and he was absolutely glowing with glee with how happy that little speech made him.

“’Pretty’, huh? Maybe we should get you some dresses, do your hair all nice. You know, I had two girls, I know a thing or two about all that shit.”

“Eat a dick, Marty.”

Marty opened his mouth to retort, but the first comeback his traitorous mind supplied him with was, _who says I wouldn’t enjoy that?,_ so he just shut up and went back to the divorce mess he was currently trying to clean up. He could feel Rust looking up at him, and his cheeks burned.

“This jerkoff husband needs to get his shit in order,” he muttered towards the file, “it’s amazing, the insight that retrospect can give you. Can’t believe I ever acted like this son of a bitch here.”

Rust didn’t reply, and Marty kept his eyes trained on the printed words before him. A long– and really fucking awkward– silence filled the air.

He heard Rust slowly get up.

“I’m gonna take a walk,” Rust said quietly as he left, “good luck with the jerkoff.”

It was only when the front door closed behind Rust that Marty dropped his head to the bench and let out a long, frustrated groan.

“Shit,” he whispered miserably.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

One night, Rust went out for drinks with the guys from the shed where he worked. Marty declined the offer to come, dutifully mocked Rust for becoming a blue-collar pawn on the chessboard of consumerism, and stayed at home.

Half an hour or so after Rust had left, Marty worked up the nerve to do it. He retrieved his laptop and, with the weight of internalised homophobia resting heavy upon his shoulders, he started searching. It wasn’t as if he was new to porn; hell, he lived alone, and had done so for a long time. A man had his needs. He’d just never looked at _this_ kind of porn before.

It felt dirty. Wrong. All those boys with their flawless bodies and their model-perfect faces, barely old enough to buy a gun, barely old enough to drink. They weren’t what Marty wanted. They were smooth skin in place of sun-darkened scars, wide eyes and willing grins in place of veiled stares and complex riddles.

But he still got hard. When the blonde boy climbed on top of a much older man and started moving his hips, Marty touched himself. When the Latino boy’s brown body swayed slowly with gentle thrusts, Marty sucked in a sharp breath and closed his eyes. He listened to the gasps and moans of strangers, of men he would never meet and boys that were reduced to pixels on a screen, and realised he didn’t need to look any more. All he needed to do was listen, and imagine that the deep grunts he was hearing belonged to Rust.

It was only when he realised he was imagining himself as the whimpering boys that he came.

 

***

 

Marty scrubbed himself raw in the shower after he was done, and then lit a scented candle on his bedside.

He knew what Rust’s fucking sense of smell was like.

 

***

 

Rust came home just before midnight, alcohol on his clothes but none on his breath. His shirt had come slightly untucked through the evening, and Marty made sure he kept his eyes trained on Rust’s face, not letting his gaze wander.

“Well hey there, Rust. Make some friends?” Marty asked, smirking, from where he stood in the kitchen. He was slowly slicing a lump of turkey he’d bought, because he’d figured out that Rust had an innate weakness for snacking if there were bite-sized pieces of anything floating around. It was the easiest way to make sure he was eating.

“Probably not. Reckon I see too much to make friends, after all these years.” Rust threw his phone and wallet onto the couch, where he had been sleeping since his escape from the hospital. Marty realised that plans of him moving out had utterly been totally forgotten.

“Reckon you’ve always seen too goddamn much, if we’re bein’ honest with one another.” Marty muttered.

Rust nodded in quiet agreement, and then frowned.

“…Did you light a fuckin’ candle in here or somethin’?”

Marty focussed on slicing slowly through the turkey.

“What,” he muttered, “it smells nice.”

Rust stood there in stunned silence, until Marty looked up at him and glared.

“For fuck’s sake, go and shower, you smell like a brewery.”

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

A few weeks later, they were sitting on the couch watching television. Or, Marty was. Rust was staring through the screen, offering the occasional sarcastic or satirical insight– met, of course, with Marty telling him to shut up. It was a nightly arrangement that was mutually enjoyed, and almost anticipated. Ironically enough, in moments like these Marty felt more married than he ever had before.

“I’ve got this place,” Rust said suddenly, his voice quiet, “in Alaska. It’s not mine, but I reckon I’d be welcome there if I asked.”

Marty looked over at him, shocked, but Rust kept his eyes trained on the television. Marty swallowed, and didn’t even have to wonder why his chest was suddenly so unbearably tight.

“You’ve done a lot for me, Marty. Putting up with my miserable ass.” Rust continued as he fidgeted, and Marty had only ever seen him like this a handful of times before. So nervous, so raw. “No reason you’ve gotta keep on dealin’ with me. You ain’t obligated to do shit.”

Marty thought of the night outside the hospital, the failed family dinner, the dying light in a madman’s maze as Rust lay bleeding. And he itched with the need to keep Rust close. To keep him here, keep him safe. He opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t think of what to say, where to start.

“If you want me to go, I will.” Rust looked at him now, his eyes honest and unveiled in a way Marty was wholly unprepared for, “that’s all I’m sayin’.”

Marty swallowed. He met Rust’s eyes, and wanted to say so much. He wanted to tell him everything.

He knew he couldn’t.

“Fuck’s sake,” Rust drawled, frowning slightly as if he hadn’t actually expected Marty to think twice about his response, “say somethin’, Marty. Ain't like you to be lost for words in any situation.”

Marty scoffed out a short laugh, and turned his attention back to the television. He had a sip of beer, just to stall.

“Wouldn’t wanna throw your lonesome ass out into the world," he finally said.

“…Marty-”

“I like havin’ you here, goddamnit, and I know you ain’t keen to fuck off and spend the rest of your life alone. So quit it, and stop pretendin’ you don’t like bein’ here too.” He refused to look at Rust’s face. He let the silence stretch on, trying not to think too hard about the words _the rest of your life_ and what they meant.

“…A’ight,” Rust eventually replied, his voice gentle, “okay, Marty. Okay.”

Marty nodded. “Good.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the night.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Marty was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing at his eyes when Rust appeared in his doorway with a cup of coffee.

“…That for me?”

Rust nodded, and walked forward to set the cup down on Marty’s bedside table. After he’d put it down he stood there for a moment, like he wanted to say something. Marty looked up at him, frowning. He waited. Rust just stared back like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

Eventually, Rust took a breath, and rubbed distractedly at his thigh. “Your hair’s stickin’ up. Maybe you should just give in and shave it all off.”

Marty blinked. “…Uh. Sure.”

Rust nodded tensely, and walked out. His movements were noticeably stiffer than usual, and Marty watched him go with a suspicious squint. That was the first time Rust had ever brought him coffee in the morning. Yeah, they usually had a pot brewing, and he’d make one if Marty asked, but he’d never randomly woken Marty up with coffee like that. And he certainly never came into Marty’s bedroom unless he was stealing clothes because he couldn’t be fucked doing his own washing.

Marty grabbed the cup and stood, walking out into the kitchen, where he found Rust dropping some bread into the toaster. He had a sip of coffee, and plotted how he’d navigate the conversation.

“You want some toast?” Rust asked.

“Sure.” Marty leaned against the bench. “What was that?”

Rust didn’t look up as he dug around in the bread bag. “What was what?”

“You never bring me coffee in bed.”

“Well, if I’d known you were gonna be an ungrateful bitch I wouldn’t have bothered.”

Marty pursed his lips and decided to cut the bullshit. “Is this about you moving to Alaska?”

Rust put two more pieces of bread into the toaster, and didn’t reply.

“Are you leaving?”

He expected Rust to laugh and say _we’re not fuckin’ married,_ but he didn’t, and Marty felt panic hit him hard. Just as he was about to launch into a lecture about how Rust needed to appreciate a good fucking thing when he had it, Rust slowly shook his head.

“Nah. It ain’t that.”

Marty felt a swell of relief. “What is it, then?”

Rust went still. The kind of stillness that reminded Marty of wild cats and untamed beasts. He was like a panther, Rust; he was primal. An animal of refined intelligence.

Rust turned around, slowly. His expression was nervous, and his mouth was tight– Marty noticed that there were shadows under his eyes, the kind that said he’d stayed up all night thinking too hard. His stare was utterly hypnotising, and scarily steady.

“Rust,” Marty set down his coffee, “what the fuck is going on.”

The question was flat, and he didn’t bother to disguise his worry. Rust held his stare, and licked slowly at his lips.

“…I’m gonna fuckin’ regret this.”

Marty was about to demand to know what the hell Rust planned to do, but he didn’t get a chance, because Rust was stepping forward, reaching out. Marty flinched, hands rushing upwards to defend himself from a punch that never came; Rust’s hands landed on his neck, fingers curved and gentle. And then he was leaning in and kissing Marty, with a mouth that was soft, gentle, and just as perfect as Marty had imagined.

Fuck. Fuck, _Rust was kissing him._ Every atom in Marty’s body seemed to explode, torn between pushing Rust away or pulling him closer– so close that he’d never have to let go. Rust’s body, his tight abdomen and his perfect waist, were so close, and all Marty wanted to do was touch him. He set his hands tentatively on Rust’s waist, shaking with the boldness of that movement. He didn’t dare move.

“I knew it,” Rust was breathing against his mouth, “I knew it.”

Marty swallowed, eyes closed, and tried to breathe. Of course. Of course Rust had fucking seen right through him.

“Christ, Rust-”

“Don’t. Don’t talk, Marty.” Rust’s voice was so gravelly, so low, so close to Marty’s skin, “I know how much this has been tearin’ you up inside. Just let me take care of you.”

His hands shifted, movements liquid and strong as they always were, and Marty had never imagined those hands would ever be pressed against him, touching him like this, caressing him as if he were something precious, someone beautiful, someone that should be treasured-

“Rust,” Marty heard his breath hitch, “stop, stop. Rust, just,”

Rust did. His hands disappeared, and Marty felt cold without the warmth of his palms, the weight of his clever fingers. His eyes snapped open, and he could’ve died right there, with Rust so close, looking so tormented and impassioned.

“Just,” Marty could barely speak, had never known himself to be this vulnerable, “just tell me why. Why you’re doin’ this.”

Rust’s lips parted, a frown creasing his forehead. The sunlight through the window painted his eyes with a warm shine, turning bright blue into gold-tinged turquoise. God, and the shadows enhanced the sculpted planes of his perfect, _perfect_ face… he was fucking _flawless_ , and Marty almost wished he could hate him for being so stupidly beautiful.

“Because I want to.” Rust moved his hand slowly, his words a drawling whisper. He drew a thumb across Marty’s mouth, so fucking slowly, and Marty couldn’t move, couldn’t budge from where he stood because the look in Rust’s eyes said _I want to fuck you into next week._

Marty felt so small. He felt so afraid of giving in, of letting this be real. But he looked up into Rust’s eyes, and felt a little less afraid. A burning thrill within him begged him to just do it, to just let go.

He reached up, pressed a trembling hand to Rust’s face. He watched Rust’s eyes slide closed, and somehow that made it easier. Somehow that made this less terrifying. Marty tilted up his chin, and kissed Rust. So gently. So fucking carefully. Only as much as he could stand, only as much as he could dare trying. He’d never kissed like this before. He’d never been _afraid_ to kiss someone.

He closed his eyes again, and felt something break inside him.

“I’m doin’ this,” Rust whispered against his mouth, “because I…”

He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say it aloud, and Marty felt a swell of understanding, and he thought of everything that existed between them. All the years, all the shit and the emotion and the memories. And he knew exactly what Rust meant. He fucking knew.

Marty kissed him deeper. Slid a hand around Rust’s waist, to hold the small of his back.

“Me too,” he whispered. “Fuck, Rust. Me too.”

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Marty had never been so scared in his life.

Rust moved against him like he knew what he was doing, like he had done this before. And Marty was so afraid, so unsure of himself, that all he could stand to do was let Rust touch him. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He just needed this to happen, fast, so that the fear could go away, and he could touch Rust without this suspense hanging over him. He undressed and hunched in on himself, hating what he looked like, refusing to look at Rust’s body or let his eyes wander between Rust’s thighs.

When Rust guided him onto the bed, Marty turned his back to him. Rust’s hands were immediately searching, trying to turn him around.

“Marty, look at me.”

“No,” Marty tilted his head to the side, breathed out shakily, “No, not… not yet.”

Rust kissed his jaw as if he understood, and hummed quietly.

“Whatever you need, Marty.”

It was approaching midday. A strange time to be doing this, really, but Marty couldn’t think of anything past Rust’s body, Rust’s hands, and Rust’s tongue. The feeling of fingers inside him was new and uncomfortable, and he grit his teeth, trying to bear it, trying to breathe through it.

“Relax,” Rust’s hand moved over his abdomen, “relax for me, Marty,”

“Shut up. Just shut up,” Marty breathed, his voice unsteady, “please don’t talk.”

Rust knew what Marty needed. Rust could hear the fear in his voice. So he didn’t speak anymore, he just held Marty tight, and he did what he needed to do. He knew that Marty wanted this to happen as quickly as it possibly could.

When Rust put a hand between his shoulder blades and pushed, Marty fell forward, bracing himself on his hands and knees– and he was so fucking disturbed by how natural it felt, how easy it was to give in like this, that he pressed his face into his forearm and wished he was anywhere else. He wished he wasn’t harder than he’d ever been in his life. He wished this didn’t feel so good.

“Are you sure-”

“Just do it. Please. Just fucking do it.”

Rust paused, and Marty knew he wanted to say more. He knew Rust wanted to make this more romantic, wanted to check that Marty was alright and that this was what he wanted.

“Marty-”

“Don’t,” Marty’s voice shook, “don’t ask me. Just do it.”

Rust was still, for a moment longer, before Marty felt something pressing against him. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, tried not to make a noise when Rust pushed inside him. Tears filled his eyes, hot and stinging, and _it hurt, it hurt so fucking much,_ but he felt so full, just like he’d always wanted– and he wished he could see Rust naked behind him, but he’d been too afraid to look before. God, he felt so full. This was all he’d ever wanted, and he was so scared of how amazing it felt.

He heard a shaky moan from behind him, and he nearly came, just knowing that Rust was the one making that noise.

“Rust,” he whispered, not sure at all what he was asking for, “…please,”

Rust took a shaky breath, and the hand between Marty’s shoulder blades moved, slid down his spine, making Marty shiver. Rust moved his hips, swayed his waist forward, and Marty moaned– he didn’t mean to, but his mouth opened wide, and a strangled noise burst from his throat. God, Rust was _so deep_ inside him, and he could barely breathe, could barely even _think_ past the pressure and the heat and the spark–

Rust moved his hips again. Marty slid down onto his elbows, pressing his face into the pillow. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t believe this was happening.

 

***

 

It felt so good.

He couldn’t stand it. His mind was utterly empty, devoid of any kind of coherent thought.

Rust was quiet, at first, and gentle. But, in what seemed like no time at all, his quiet gasps and hoarse breaths turned to uninhibited moans– and then he started talking, murmuring things Marty didn’t believe, about Marty being perfect and beautiful and brave. The sound of his voice, throaty and raw, filled Marty so entirely that he could think of nothing else. Then, suddenly, Rust was leaning forward, his bare chest against Marty’s back, strong arms wrapping around him. He was moving his hips fast, and so deep. So fucking deep.

“You’re the only one I’ve got,” Rust murmured, his meandering Texan accent breathless and drawling, “you, Marty, _fuck-”_

Marty arched his head back, and he felt Rust’s hand slide around to hold his neck. He felt vulnerable. Protected. Safe. He felt like one of those boys in the videos– with a strong man controlling him, a strong man taking care of him, a strong man fucking him and making him whine like a woman–

He came.

It was so unexpected. So sudden. He was shaking, trembling; a moment so quiet, so intimate, cutting right to his core the way that sex never had before. Rust’s mouth was at his ear, panting. Marty hung there in his arms, just trying to breathe.

He thought of all those car rides. The memories of faded towns, the buildings in dull sepia and the profile of Rust’s face as he smoked cigarettes. He thought of nihilism and small smiles, hesitant confessions of humility and annoyingly profound statements; he remembered how he’d slowly fallen in love with this enigmatic detective, how he’d come to worship the curve of his lower back and the slow sway of his hips. He lay limply and let the realisation wash over him; that Rust was behind him, pressed so tightly against him, _inside him._ He wondered what they looked like, the two of them. If he were watching this, what would he see? He’d never had a high opinion of his body, but he felt… transformed.

He felt free.

This wasn’t like sex with a woman. This wasn’t like anything he’d ever experienced before; he realised he’d before never let himself be weak, in sex. He’d always felt in control, when there was a woman involved. But, in this moment, with Rust, he felt so far from control. He was helpless to everything.

“…hey. Look at me. Marty. Marty, look at me.”

Marty slowly opened his eyes. Rust was looking down at him, and Marty wondered when he’d been laid on his back.

“Hey.” He smiled shyly, and crossed his arms over his chest, looking to the side with burning cheeks.

“Come on now, Marty” Rust drawled, gently taking Marty’s wrists in his hands, “none of that.”

Marty swallowed hard, and let Rust unfold his arms. They were lying so close together. He stared hard at the other side of the room, his heart hammering.

“Hey. Come on. Look at me.”

There were fingers on Marty’s face. The gentle sensation of skin against skin. He looked up at Rust, licking tentatively at his lips. There was worry on Rust’s face, as well as a sheen of sweat, and a pink tinge to his cheeks that hadn’t been there before. His waves of hair were askew, a stray curl hanging down his forehead. Marty realised, with a jolt of vulnerability, what they had just done.

“You okay?” Rust asked.

Marty smiled. He wasn’t sure how convincing the expression was, or what the truthful answer to that question really was.

“Yeah,” he said, anyway, starting to sit up, “yeah, I’m fine.”

He walked away from the bed, to the bathroom, hating that Rust was seeing him naked, just knowing Rust was watching him. And something inside him ached, a jolt of pain he’d never before experienced throbbing deep within him. He felt, suddenly, so exposed that he couldn’t stand it. He closed the bathroom door behind him and leaned against it, covering his face with both hands, trying to breathe.

It’d happened so quick. Too quick. Marty wished he’d had time to prepare for this. He wished he’d answered honestly when Rust had asked if he was sure. He could barely even process the idea of what they'd just done; he'd just  _had sex_ with Rust Cohle. His friend. His fucking friend. Rustin fucking Cohle. What the fuck.

And he'd loved it. It'd felt so good.

He heard quiet footsteps approaching the door, and he rubbed at his eyes, realised he was crying. _Fuck,_ why was he crying? He’d wanted this, he truly had. The thought of Rust on the other side of the door, standing naked as the day he was fucking born, was so appealing and earth-shatteringly amazing that all he wanted to do was open the door and kiss him again– but he also just wanted to hide here forever.

“Marty?”

He shook his head, and took a slow breath. He heard the inhalation shake, and hated it.

“Sorry. Sorry, don’t know what’s fuckin’ come over me. Just gimme a second.”

There was a long pause.

“This normal, Marty. It’s okay to be freaked out. You ain’t never experienced this sort of thing before.”

“What,” Marty let out a hysterical bark of laughter, “ _gay sex,_ you mean?”

A longer pause, this time. A heavier one.

“Don’t do that, Marty,” Rust murmured sadly, his voice closer, as if he had his forehead pressed against the wood of the door, his eyes closed in a pained expression, “I know this is scarin' you. Please, just open the door.”

Marty sniffed, shook his head. “What, because we cry in front of each other all the fuckin’ time now? No. We don’t do that. Just fuck off and let me do what I gotta.”

That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to sound so angry. So cruel. But the words were out now, and the silence on the other side of the door only made him feel angrier, only felt more afraid. He didn’t mention that night outside the hospital, didn’t talk about how Rust had cried and exposed every part of himself, didn’t want to consider what it had taken for Rust to say the things that he had that night.

“A’ight, Marty,” came the quiet murmur, “a’ight.”

More silence. More anger building in Marty’s blood, sharp words waiting to rise to his defence in place of a vulnerability he didn’t know how to handle.

Then, the quiet noises of fabric moving, as Rust got dressed. The far-off sound of a door closing. The sound of an engine starting.

Marty threw open the bathroom door, ran to his wardrobe, and grabbed a dressing down. By the time he made it to the front door, Rust’s red truck was already driving away down the road.

He slammed his fist against the wall and wished he wasn’t such a fucking coward.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Rust parked his truck outside a bar.

He’d done this a few times since Carcosa. Driven around trying to convince himself he didn’t need a drink, then trying to convince himself he needed _just one, just need one fucking drink,_ then jarringly remembering how that mantra always ended. At that point, he’d usually ended up going back to Marty’s house to miserably sip at watered-down beer that tasted like piss– an experience that, generally, put him off wanting alcohol at all. He had only given in a handful of times, and only once had he gotten so smashed that he’d had to peel himself off the bar and drive home unsteadily. It made him fucking scared, to think he’d done that almost nightly, for years after Sofia died. Drinking deep from cans of Lone Star and Bud, popping the caps on prescription drugs and Ludes like they were lollies, taking hit after hit after hit until he couldn’t speak properly. Seatbelt off, his life hanging in the balance of shaky hands on a steering wheel. He wondered if hitting bottom was that vivid for all drunks, or whether it was just his synaesthesia which had turned several years of his life into a psychedelic trip down the fucking rabbit hole.

Then again, the drugs may have had something to do with it.

He sat, now, in his truck and gazed glumly at the bar in front of him. He wasn’t even sure it deserved to be called a bar. He missed the dive he’d worked in; he missed the drunks that took up nightly residence at opposite sides of the bar, looking down into their drinks, speaking in short sentences until they slunk off to go home to wives they no longer loved. Fuck yeah, it was miserable, but that was what bars were supposed to be. Rust had enjoyed sliding cloths over tables, preparing drinks that _men_ were supposed to drink, instead of this new-age pretty shit. He had such disdain for the snooty, sugar-filled, ten-dollar imitations of liquor. He was repulsed by the shiny shopfront in front of him, looking more like a café than any bar he’d ever known, filled with debt-haunted students and cocaine-carrying prostitutes. Christ, it was as if they wanted to package up human intoxication in a glittering bow and say it was something better than it was.

Rust sighed, tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

He knew he was just old. He came from a time that had ended long, long ago. He missed Alaska and deep-south Texan rednecks. At least they were honest.

Rust opened his eyes and considered that. He thought about the void between old men and society. He thought about how Marty had always talked about _them queers_ and _fucking faggots,_ and he felt a pull of empathy so profound it hurt. He knew what it was like, to feel left behind by society, and then to start questioning who the fuck you were.

He’d slept with men before. It’d never bothered him because he’d always been an outcast anyway, and having his dick up men’s asses was just another excuse for co-workers to give him shit and maybe try to beat him up in an alleyway. He’d always known he enjoyed sex with men, so while he didn’t broadcast being queer he never felt the need to feel bad about it. Fear of AIDs had stopped him from touching men, for a long time, but when boys were dying in droves one could hardly be blamed. He loved women in the same capacity that he loved men– which, generally, was physical rather than emotional. But that was just who he was.

Rust gazed at the bar again, but he wasn’t seeing it. He was seeing Marty, sprawled on his bed, warm and afraid and vulnerable. Moaning. Gasping. Slowly letting go, slowly relaxing into it. Images of flesh, of light and colour, filled Rust’s eyes. Sex had always been intense for him, every touch and taste and smell and sound entwined, strengthened and intensified like a physical kind of poetry. But with Marty…

Rust lifted a hand, rubbed his fingers over his chin.

…fuck. With Marty, it had been something else.

The reasons for that scared Rust more than anything in the world. Because the idea of loving Marty was so easy, so natural, that the knowledge Marty could push him away made Rust quake with fear.

Maybe they’d moved too fast. Maybe they’d made a mistake.

Rust started the truck, and made a decision.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WILL HE STAY OR WILL HE GO?????


	8. Chapter 8

Marty showered, and felt marginally better afterwards.

He’d never been a prude, when it came to sex, so after a strong black coffee he calmed down a great deal. He sat down on the couch and had a good, long think about what he would do next.

The truth that he had to accept was that he loved Rust. And not in any kind of whirlwind romance way; he loved Rust in a more profound, permanent way, a way that had grown over years of heartache and violence and shit and betrayal. In the way that meant he would be satisfied just to wake up every day just to see his gorgeous face and deal with his shitty attitude over breakfast. He wanted the motherfucker to stay at his house forever. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to wake up next to him in bed, like he had with Maggie, but he wanted to do it right this time.

He was scared. He was terrifed, because Rust wasn’t a woman, and he’d never loved a man before. He hadn’t even loved his father, and he’d grown up learning to be afraid of other men. Afraid, and angry. He’d been taught that women were safe, and men were not. They were either threats, or they were competition.

But Rust was different.

Rust was embedded so deeply within him that Marty knew he could never move on from him, no matter the distance between them or the years they spent apart. That had been proved when Rust stopped his car by the side of the road after ten years of absolute silence, and Marty had looked up at him through the window and felt something _sit right_ for the first time in so long. He remembered that moment so vividly. Remembered the relief he’d felt. Those two fuckwit cops had told him Rust was a killer, but he hadn’t believed it. There hadn’t been a fucking doubt in his mind.

In that moment, on that highway, he’d felt like he was coming home.

 

***

 

As the light was fading outside, Marty heard Rust’s truck pulling into the driveway.

He took one last look at what was before him, nervousness and determination filling him in a potent, dizzying mix. Rust’s books littered about the house, copies of the bible and other religious texts, as well as high-fucking-flatulent books like Dante’s Inferno and The Will To Power. Rust’s faded leather jacket draped over the back of a chair, an unzipped bag next to the couch that was filled with discoloured shirts and frayed jeans. Rust’s notebook, filled with drawings that looked like they belonged to Da Vinci, Leonardo, or Raphael.

That was Rust’s entire life, all his worldly possessions. All he had to his name.

And Marty never wanted him to leave.

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Rust closed the front door softly behind him.

Marty was sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, loosely holding a cup of coffee between his legs. He looked up, met Rust’s gaze, and Rust couldn’t read him for shit. He slowly walked over, rubbing his hands distractedly against his thighs. His palms were sweaty. His throat was tight. But he was good at acting. He was good at interrogations, and good at keeping his emotions down, and he had to believe he could stay calm despite the high stakes.

“Marty,” Rust began quietly, as he took a seat on the coffee table opposite Marty. But he didn’t know what to say next, so he licked at his lips, and sat still. Marty smiled at him, and Rust was ridiculously relieved to see a glint of amusement in his blue eyes.

“Rust.” Marty replied with a flat humour and a crooked smile.

“...You okay?”

Marty took a slow breath. “Reckon we moved too fast. But yeah, I’m okay.”

Rust nodded. A moment of silence passed between them; a mutual kind of hesitation, as they tried to figure out where they stood with one another. Rust could see the way Marty’s eyes flickered distractedly. He could see him thinking about it. About sex. About what they’d done.

“Listen, Marty, if you don’t wanna do that again, we ain’t gotta. What we share,” Rust swallowed thickly, “it ain’t gotta be defined. Livin’ here, we’ve got it good. And… I know who you are. You ain’t gotta change. I know you’re scared a’that.”

Marty rolled his tongue around in his mouth thoughtfully. He nodded, frowning slightly.

“Yeah. Yeah, guess I am scared. But... bein’ attracted to you, it don’t,” Marty looked down, cleared his throat, “it don’t mean shit about changin’ who I am, or how I act. I wanna be with you, and that’s the goddamn extent of it. Anythin’ else don’t fuckin’ matter. It won’t change me, ‘cause… this is me. This is just me n’ you. That’s all.”

Rust blinked. Marty looked up, saw the surprise in his eyes, and grinned widely.

“I’ve been doin’ some thinkin’,” he explained proudly.

Rust let affection soften his face, let the warm feeling in his chest seep into his expression. “Yeah, seems you have.”

Marty’s smile dimmed somewhat, fading to reveal something raw. Something lustful. His eyes were suddenly serious, intense, and Rust went still.

“I wanna touch you,” he said, his quiet words hitting Rust like a truck, “god, I wanna touch you so much. You got any idea what you do to me, Rust? What you’ve always done to me? Even when I was with Maggie, you did this to me. Even when you were a little shit, and even when I hated you, you still fuckin’ did this to me.”

Rust hadn’t expected this honesty. Hadn’t expected this maturity. He’d expected awkwardness and hesitation and fear and anger, and a good few years of Marty accepting who he was through a haze of violent homophobia. And Rust had resigned himself to the idea, because he had been prepared to go through hell in order to be with Marty.

“Yeah,” Rust replied, words thicker and harder to say than he’d imagined they would be, “Yeah, I reckon I do. And you do that to me too. Always have.”

Marty nodded. The space between them suddenly seemed too small. Rust wanted to kiss him.

“I wanna do it my way, this time,” Marty whispered, “I wanna be in control.”

Rust nodded.

Marty stood. He moved slowly, carefully, as if he were holding himself back. Rust looked up at him, craning his neck, feeling his heart hammer.

When Marty reached out a hand and placed it on Rust’s cheek, Rust let his lips part, let his barriers fall away, let Marty see him in all his honesty. Let Marty see how he felt. The desire. The nervousness. The love. Their gazes were locked, and Rust couldn’t believe how beautiful Marty’s blue eyes were. Like the sky. Like the ocean. Like stained glass in church windows. He realised he could stay like this forever, looking into Marty’s eyes.

Marty hesitated for a moment, then knelt between Rust’s legs. Rust looked down at him, swallowing with deliberate slowness. He didn’t know what Marty was planning to do next, so he just sat still and waited, hands flat on the coffee table. He didn’t want to scare Marty off. He didn’t want to ruin this.

Marty ran his hands up Rust’s denim-clad thighs, short nails scraping gently against the fabric. He reached up, tentative fingers finding the top button of Rust’s shirt. He didn’t ask permission, but he did look searchingly into Rust’s eyes. Rust nodded wordlessly, and Marty started unbuttoning his shirt. It was one of the most intimate experiences Rust had ever had. More intimate, even, than what they had done earlier that day. Marty was facing him, now, and they were both exposed. Both stripped down to their emotions and reactions, each entirely present to bear witness to one another. They were silent, just listening to each other breathe.

Marty undid the last button, his hands hovering close to Rust’s crotch before he moved them away.

“Take it off,” he said softly.

Rust slid the shirt off his shoulders slowly. Marty looked away from his eyes, now, and at his body. Rust watched him.

Marty reached out a hand, traced his fingertips gently over the mangled mass of scar tissue that covered a good portion of Rust’s left side. Then his fingers moved downwards, to his abdomen, where they touched– with noticeable hesitation– against the stab wound. Memories of blood and pain and insanity, memories of Carcosa, filled Rust’s head, and he knew Marty was remembering the same things. But, somehow, it was different like this; sitting on the coffee table in Marty’s house, the warm smell of a familiar room engulfing them both. It felt almost spiritual, as if they were connected through this small touch, this lifeline of physical contact.

Marty leaned forward, and pressed his lips against the scar.

Rust couldn’t help but gasp quietly. He tried to never touch the marks on his body if he could avoid it, and no one had treated him like this for a very, very long time. He felt wide-open, totally exposed. And the _picture_ Marty made, like this; on his knees, kissing Rust’s skin, eyes closed in reverence. Rust didn’t ever want this to end.

He slid one hand onto the back of Marty’s neck, gripping him gently. He let out a hushed breath, and the sound mingled with Marty’s quiet sigh.

“You ever think,” Marty whispered, “that we survived all that just so we could end up here?”

Rust didn’t doubt it. In fact, if he were to believe in fate, he’d say that this was destined. He’d say that God had finally given them something good. He’d say that the world wasn’t hopeless– and that maybe, just maybe, there was a point to all of this. There was a plan. There was a purpose. And, for him, it was Marty.

It was all Marty.

“That’s the most poetic thing I ever heard you say, Marty,” he said instead, smiling weakly.

Marty laughed, and Rust knew he appreciated the humour.

“Yeah, well,” Marty kissed his skin, eyes still closed, “maybe you’re rubbin’ off on me after all these years.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK U FOR READING I HOPE U ENJOYED IT
> 
> (apologies if the ending seemed sudden, I'm experiencing some health concerns right now that have stunted my writing abilities somewhat~)


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